By chance, Oded Wagenstein met and photographed an ageing community in Cuba, which led him to question what remains after we pass on?
Pic above: Leonada Gelato Machena, in her one-room apartment. Cienfuegos, Cuba
In 2014, a chance encounter led me to meet the members of an ageing community, living in a crumbling apartment complex in the town of Cienfuegos, Cuba. Although approximately sixty years of age separated us, we bonded almost immediately.
I have returned to visit them a few times per year since. On my subsequent visits, I found apartments turning empty. The tenant left the world, leaving a few personal objects behind and the void between the walls. Those walls witnessed so much: relationships and birthdays, joy, and sadness. Now, they stand in their solitude. Soon, the government will lodge a new tenant in the apartment and walls will be painted again, until they too will become another layer of paint on the wall.
Oded Wagenstein is a photographer and lecturer who uses the photographic medium to explore the relationship between Ageing and Exclusion.
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